04/16/05
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri: A bunch of lost classical texts
The Independent's article screams, "Decoded at last: the 'classical holy grail' that may rewrite the history of the world". I don't know how much the found texts will rewrite our history, but it certainly is interesting.
The original papyrus documents, discovered in an ancient rubbish dump in central Egypt, are often meaningless to the naked eye - decayed, worm-eaten and blackened by the passage of time. But scientists using the new photographic technique, developed from satellite imaging, are bringing the original writing back into view. Academics have hailed it as a development which could lead to a 20 per cent increase in the number of great Greek and Roman works in existence. Some are even predicting a "second Renaissance".
...
The papyrus fragments were discovered in historic dumps outside the Graeco-Egyptian town of Oxyrhynchus ("city of the sharp-nosed fish") in central Egypt at the end of the 19th century. Running to 400,000 fragments, stored in 800 boxes at Oxford's Sackler Library, it is the biggest hoard of classical manuscripts in the world.
This find reminds me of the much smaller gnostic scripture find some years ago.
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